Untitled [I grew up in North Adams]

With wind chill, it was 40 degrees below. It was utterly beautiful. The hawk and the eagle not having flown there then (not) visible the prints are on the snow in bright glare. (Leslie Scalapino, Dahlia's Iris, p. 104)
I grew up in North Adams. The snow on the summit is thin, frigid no humans
          self       memorial for the fallen soldiers  expropriation this land    I want 
to know why western civilization concerns itself with the individual,
individualization        elegy alone, elegy 

A way for society (power) to say, you are alone

Realizing how the stone looked covered with a primordial lake
During that time        moraine deposits        stone here from inner earth 
cataclysmic      hard and shimmering      no birds, it is much too cold

Differing body types, different   massive animals        long necks animals here 
eating the vegetation, towering, they were reptilian  human brainstem, reptilian, 
scat: dinosaur

The way is the logging road state forest no one 	missing in history
No women       there were, obviously    but missing

Summer, no birds, missing
Missing, was it acid rain?

Inside the mind, the enjoyment body
Symbols arise and text   out here, this is mind

Down now, off the precipice      to a small white house, heated
One's intrinsic awareness        white light inside the refrigerator

Vegetables waiting

Copyright © 2011 by Brenda Iijima. Used with permission of the author.